“She’s not your heart anymore, no matter what your nostalgia tells you,” Nik said very mildly. There was no edge to the words, but there was one in Niko’s sheath if Seamus wanted to make an issue of it. No jealousy, but a definite line drawn in the sand. And didn’t it figure my brother would pick up Gaelic in his spare time?
“My nostalgia lasts longer than your lifetime, human,” Seamus replied as mildly. “I shall be waiting at a finish line you will never see.”
Promise didn’t look amused by the exchange, and Goodfellow didn’t help things any. “Men fighting over you,” Robin said as he started opening cabinets and rifling through them, looking for that hair of the dog he’d mentioned earlier. Since he was sober now, I let it go. One or two wouldn’t hurt him, and it might help us. “It’s like old times for you, eh? Or it would be if both of them were dueling with their walkers.”
She was even less amused now. Seamus repeated with a snort of disdain, “A puck, Promise? Sincerely, lass, what would possess you?”
“My company is my business, Seamus. Don’t make assumptions on an old acquaintance,” she warned. “You make it difficult to want to give you our assistance.”
He gave her an abashed look from mellow whiskey-colored eyes. Curling his lips, he put a hand to his chest and bowed slightly. “I’m a poor client and a poor host. Forgive me.”
Robin finally stumbled on a bottle of wine and toasted us. “You’re forgiven. Sla inte chugat. Now where’s your corkscrew?”
“As I have no brothel to offer you, Puck, a meager good health to you as well. And in the drawer by the stove,” Seamus answered, suddenly good-natured . . . even toward an odious puck. He waved a hand at the couch and chairs, simple wood and natural fabrics that contrasted against the bold colors of the paintings. The Tylenol was beginning to let me see them as bold rather than eye-melting. “My apologies. Please.”
I didn’t believe the apology or accept it, but I did accept the invitation to sit. Sprawling in a chair, I looked over at Robin pouring a glass of ruby red. I held up one finger, cutting him off with the single glass. He rolled his eyes and ignored me. I may as well have been at work at the bar.
Promise sat on the couch, and Niko stood. Niko usually stood. You never knew when the couch might come alive and eat you. You had to stay alert. Constantly vigilant. Although after the Auphe attack, I didn’t blame him. I dealt with it a little differently. Every cell inside me vibrated with the need to runrunrun. Sitting, slouching, watching Robin, looking at art I didn’t get . . . it kept a small part of my mind occupied. Kept me from grabbing Niko’s arm and tearing down the street. Getting out of town like the old days. Going anywhere. Anywhere but here. Anywhere the Auphe weren’t. Just like a dozen times before.
Good times. Jesus.
It was also a helluva ride waiting . . . balancing on the knife’s edge as I just waited. Waited to feel that heads-up, that gut twist of an Auphe gate opening. The sensation of theirs ripping open were a distant echo of mine, but I could still feel them. It was a nice alarm system, good to have. But it was no fun, the nerve-shredding anticipation. No goddamn fun at all.
“Have one, kid. It will do you good.”
I looked up to see a wineglass in front of me. Robin was right. At the moment, one wouldn’t kill me. The Auphe would, but wine wouldn’t. “Thanks.” I took it and had a swallow. I made a face. It was the good stuff. I didn’t drink much—with an alcoholic mother, I didn’t like to take chances—but I did know the better the wine, the worse it tasted. I liked the cheap stuff. The more it tasted like Kool-Aid, the happier I was. You could take the boy out of the trailer park . . .
Robin clicked his glass against mine and toasted. “As they say, it never rains; it pours. Pours liquid fire from the sky, sets us aflame, and scorches the earth to barren bedrock.” Goodfellow’s glass was now half-empty, but he stuck to the one-glass rule. “Cheers.”
Niko shook his head when the bottle was held in his direction, as did Promise and Seamus, who said, bemused, “You are, without a doubt, the most grim and gloomy puck it’s been my pleasure to come across.”
No one commented. Aware he’d breached a touchy subject, he continued briskly, “On to my difficulty, annoyance that it is. It started nearly a week ago.” He frowned. “I’m being followed. At least it seems that way. Ordinarily, I would know, but this . . . this is different. I do not see anyone tailing me, as they say, yet wherever I go, someone is there, already waiting. Someone who has far too much interest in me. Always in a public place where I cannot discuss the situation with them.” White teeth, fangs and all, were shown in a humorless and savage grin. “And before I am to leave, they disappear. I turn away for a moment, and they are gone. It seems they know my intention before I do.”
“Same guy?” I asked.
“No, which makes it more perplexing.” He shook his head. “They’re smart, whoever these sons of bitches be, but after four hundred years, I know when I’m being watched. I know when someone’s a little too curious about my affairs.”
“So you see the need for the team dynamic,” Promise said, her hands clasped loosely over her knee. The oval pearlescent nails gleamed. “We can surround whatever curious gentleman shows up. He can’t evade us all.”
Well, if nothing else, it seemed easier than our last few jobs. No flesh-eating kidnappers. No fire-spewing serpents. No dead little girls. And with the Auphe back, something easy was all we could probably handle. If we even wanted to. Yeah, we needed the money, but trying to stay alive trumped that. I had doubts, serious doubts we could do both. I had doubts we could do even the most important one. I looked over at Nik and voted no with two words: “The Auphe.”
Seamus’s face slid into an expression of pure disgust. “Those diabhail creatures. What of them? I’d heard they were no more.”
Promise hadn’t told him I was half Auphe, and vampires don’t have the sense of smell werewolves do. The wolves always knew. Seamus, however, didn’t seem to have any idea about me, which was fine. I’d seen enough of those same looks of disgust shot my way. Disgust and fear. I was beginning to take a perverse pleasure in the last one. Not such a great thing to admit, but being hated for who you were right down to the genetic level leads to some defense mechanisms. Unhealthy ones, probably, but what the hell?
“Yeah, well, you heard wrong.” I pulled the tie from my hair to let the dark strands fall free against my neck. I stretched the black elastic until it dug into my fingers with a painful bite. “They have a problem with us. And an Auphe problem is one fucking big problem. We don’t need the distraction right now.”
Niko disagreed with me. “Job or not, Cal, we still have a problem,” he pointed out with inarguable logic. I hated logic. It was never on my side. “They’ll come when they come; we can’t change that. Whether we’re working a case or not. Putting our lives on hold won’t make us any safer.”
Or any more likely to survive, I added silently. But he was right, and it wasn’t about the money. It was about what I’d said earlier, keeping at least some of your thoughts somewhere else. Not enough to be truly distracted, but enough to keep from drowning in dread and apprehension. I shifted my shoulders to loosen the tension in my neck, and exhaled. “Okay, okay. I’m in.” Moving from kidnapping to extermination to babysitting—our cases weren’t quite heading in the right direction. Thoughts for another time . . . like when our asses weren’t in such a sling. Or when we were dead.
Plenty of time then.
So we took the job. Robin, unable to help himself, jumped in to haggle Seamus up to an outrageous fee. It was a wonder he left the poor bastard with the tartan boxers on his ass. On that slightly disturbing thought, I turned toward the door with the others, leaving behind echoing spaces, powerfully raw art, and Seamus . . . Seamus, who was staring at Niko’s back as I looked over my shoulder. Not at Promise as I’d expected. But at Nik. Staring and staring hard.